How was it that, in 2012, the maternal mortality rate in Texas reached a shocking 148 deaths--double the level from two years previously? That was the question many were asking in 2016, thanks to a study that purported to show just that.

The study’s authors found the spike puzzling, particularly as the state’s rate of deaths associated with pregnancy and childbirth went down again after 2012. And now we know why: the figures were simply wrong.